Re-Imagined Eyes

for violin and classical guitar

duration: 3.5 minutes

Premiere: November 2013, Terre Haute, IN

A violinist friend of mine came to me with an old, 1930’s violin part that was just that – a part with no accompaniment. The part was an arrangement of an old Russian folk song called “Dark Eyes”, or “Black Eyes”. He asked me if I could write an accompaniment to the part. I thought about it, and ended up re-composing the part, and composing a completely new and re-imagined accompaniment.

It changed little from the original violin part, save for slowly changing accidentals, so the tonality gradually travels to someplace distant from where it started. The piece begins in a more typical style endemic to the 1930’s when greats like Heifetz were tearing up the concert stages. However, I looked at the old part as a sort of time capsule. It had been born in the 1930’s, and then been lost, only to re-emerge in the very foreign land of the 21st century.

This is exactly how I approached the composition of the piece. It flows – slowly – from the past into the present.

Score Sample

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